Who Fixed Your Pluming?

Suppose your water heater broke so you couldn't take a hot shower. You go to a person and ask them to check out your water heater. That person comes to your house and uses a bunch of spare parts and then fixes it so you pay him or her for the repairs. Is this person more likely:

An accountant

OR

A plumber

OR

An accountant and a plumber.

An accountant and a plumber. Plumber Accountaint

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1 solution

Sonia Meeuwsen
Oct 11, 2017

The person is most likely an accountant. When you read this word problem, you intuitively jumped to the conclusion that the person was most likely a plumber because, well, plumbers fix water heaters. BUT, the question asks what is more likely, which means it's a probability question. So, the probabilities are that

[A] a plumber-accountant fixed your heater (probably very small, right? Not many people are both licensed plumbers and accountants),

[B] an accountant fixed your heater (there are probs waaaaaay more accountants than plumber-accountants)

And then, in this situation, any plumber is definitely also an accountant, so you actually add those probabilities together.

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